Dar tells OIC meeting India cannot discard the Indus Waters Treaty 'when inconvenient'

Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said on Wednesday that India could not “set aside” its international obligations when they became inconvenient, using an address to the OIC Contact Group on Jammu and Kashmir — held on the sidelines of the 81st UN General Assembly in New York — to press Islamabad’s position that the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) remains fully in force.

“The treaty is a binding international agreement and contains no provision permitting its unilateral suspension,” Dar told the ministerial meeting, according to Dawn. “International obligations can’t be set aside when they become inconvenient.”

India placed the 1960 accord in abeyance in April last year, a move followed by a brief military conflict between the two nuclear-armed neighbours in May 2025. New Delhi has insisted the treaty cannot be used to withhold accountability, while Pakistan has argued no party can suspend a treaty that contains no provision for suspension.

Dar pointed to a unanimous August award by the Permanent Court of Arbitration, which declared the treaty remains fully in force and rejected India’s “abeyance” framing. India has rejected the verdict outright: its foreign ministry said the “so-called Court of Arbitration has no jurisdiction whatsoever” and that the abeyance “remains in force.”

Dar is in New York for the UNGA high-level week, running September 21–25, where he is accompanying Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and attending a programme of OIC and multilateral engagements.